Opposition Leaders Meet Foreign Diplomats
Four opposition leaders met with a group of foreign diplomats accredited in Tbilisi on April 30 to share their views on ongoing protests.
Kakha Kukava, co-leader of Conservative Party; Davit Usupashvili, leader of Republican Party, part of Alliance for Georgia; Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia and Salome Zourabichvili, a former foreign minister and leader of Georgia’s Way party participated in the meeting held in the office of European Commission Delegation in Tbilisi.
Ivan Jestrab, the Czech ambassador to Georgia, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told journalists after the meeting that the opposition leaders informed diplomats about “their visions for the days to come and how the present situation should be solved.”
“We also presented our points of view,” he said. “We reiterated that according to our views it is the right for the citizens in every democratic country to express their views through demonstrating; at the same time we encouraged the political dialogue to be started, as this is, according to our view, how the political questions should be solved.”
“We also underlined the necessity that the law and order is to be preserved and disruption of the city must be kept to the minimum level,” the Czech ambassador said.
“Opposition leaders told us that they do not oppose dialogue for solving the problems the country is facing; however, they reiterated that there is only one item on their agenda” – the resignation of President Saakashvili, he added.
Nino Burjanadze, the leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia, told journalists after the meeting that the opposition wanted from the international community to make “impartial assessment” of the ongoing developments.
"The diplomats were not fully informed about some of the issues, including why the opposition is pushing for a single demand – Saakashvili’s resignation," Burjanadze said.
“We explained our position why the Georgian people are demanding President’s resignation and naturally we stressed that we do not request anyone to interfere in the country’s internal affairs, but we think that making of impartial assessment by the international community of the current developments is very important,” she said. “Although the authorities do not break up the ongoing rallies openly, they have resorted to a new method and are now trying to discredit the opposition. I think that this meeting will yield concrete results.”
Commenting on inconveniences to the daily life of citizens, caused by blocking of traffic on several key thoroughfares in Tbilisi, Burjanadze said: “Our task is to create as less problems as possible to the population and as many problems as possible to the authorities. Simply, under current conditions, we are forced to create some inconveniences in order to make pressure on the authorities.”
“We called on them [foreign diplomats] to get involved in monitoring of certain violations such as non-functioning of institutions, non-functioning of police and media,” Salome Zourabichvili, the leader of Georgia’s Way party, said. “The only way out of the current political crisis is Saakashvili’s resignation but peacefully, so that nothing is damaged in this country.”
“We have regular meetings with foreign diplomats. We briefed them on ongoing protest rallies, our strategy and plans,” Davit Usupashvili, co-chairman of Alliance for Georgia, said after the meeting. “The ambassadors have noted that the rallies are passing in frames of law and democratic standards and that the opposition is obviously controlling the situation.”
“We have told them that if they take more active part in settlement of problems – we do not request them to support us in our struggle against President Saakashvili – but if they push the issues of media, police, election systems and other topics in their documents and recommendations, it will be very good beyond the context of these protest rallies,” Usupashvili said.
“The ambassadors are certainly willing that the problems in the country are settled through a dialogue, but they also understand our arguments, because we have reminded them again, what the results of so called dialogue held in spring 2008 were [prior to the parliamentary elections]. We told that the dialogue will have sense only if it has serious guarantees and if it concerns the key issue – change of the authorities, Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation,” Usupashvili added.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
